☠☠╰▷╮Amidst the eternal waves of time, from a ripple of change shall the storm rise. Xaris ☠ Zeigmus "The demon soars through dark skies Fear and death trail its shadow beneath Until men united wield a hallowed sabre In final reckoning, the beast is slain."
During the midst of the attack and explosions going on from the base, Xaris's armor had protected her from the tornado spell, as Auto-Shell triggered on her, reducing the damage significantly and preventing her from being blown away, her grip firmly imbedded into the guardian force, and preparing to go for another swing down on it before she, and it, were caught in an echo explosion, whisked away so suddenly and without warning. When everything came into vision, Xaris groaned as she felt the intense heat of the light around her, her body instinctively hating every bit of this domain. But, again, her armor protected her, a slight pale hue flicking from her suit as the anti-magic suit provided a shield for her to handle the environment.
Seeing as she still had everything on her, the attention shifted towards the many onlookers, the room, and most importantly, the supposed queen of this realm. Nyale? At first confusion grew on her face, but then, all the information about echoes, and the potential possibilities that came from her, lead her to conclude that this was not their world. Her eyes shared a similar hollow look towards this Nyale, every bit of her bellowing out a sickly essence of pride and ego. Every bit of it reminded her of Ultimecia.
She tilted her head to the side, eyes gauging the surprise additional company she had with her. The Trabian SeeD that was at the base had followed her here. Although Xaris was familiar with all SeeDs generally, this one in particular she knew simply through association of Koyuki, and in fact, it was Yukiko that was responsible for making the very weapon Xaris was wielding in her hand now. "Yukiko." She said as she extended her hand out to the Trabian who was on the ground, having wounds littering her body from the explosion and gunfire she suffered. She had managed to survive, but she still was covered in wounds. "Regen." She cast her magic on Yukiko, healing the girl before helping her up to her feet. Her attention turned back to Nyale, only one eye visible, but somehow her presence altered the air around her. Although there were no darkness around her to take advantage of, and thus weakened, she still emitted it from her very being, naturally.
"It's a shame to see what you've become." She said as she stepped forward ahead of Yukiko, spear in hand. Although she showed no hostility, or even a desire to fight, she was not going to be left unguarded with a sorceress in front of her. "But I have no right to judge you. Your journey began with pain inflicted upon by me, and it is a stain upon my soul; a regret I can never amend." Her grip on her spear tightened, darkness shrouding across it as she looked upon Nyale with a mix of pain, love, and a motherly gaze. "You should be better than your elders. Yet, you've chosen the path of domination, instead of healing. You're not a queen. You're just Nyale, and that is all you've ever needed to be. This is nothing b-" She needed to know what kind of woman this Nyale was, and she needed to poke and prod to really know how she'd lash out. That was the only way she could know, to understand the difference. She was about to finish her sentence until...
Out of the abyss peer the eyes of a demon. Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath.╭ ◁╯☠☠ "As the demon sleeps, man turns on man His own blood and madness soon cover the earth From the depths of despair awaken the Razgriz Its raven wings ablaze in majestic light."
Yukiko had found herself groaning in pain on the ground. Her vision blurred for a moment, not recognizing the environment around her. The whispering of others had drawn her attention, looking between the robed figures, and the woman standing in front of her. Xaris? When did she get here? Her eyes drifted towards the throne, confused to see a more mature Nyale? If the situation wasn't weird, she'd have said she looked gorgeous. But something about her was strange, she spoke more with authority, and worst of all was she didn't recognize who she was? Xaris had turned to face her at this point, after Nyale pointed her out, getting healed by Xaris and pulled up to her feet. Her coat was torn to shreds from the gunfire and explosion, so she reluctantly just tore it off, revealing her armblades and leg blades that were connected to her limbs, hidden well initially by the coat, but now she wore nothing but her combat gear. Readjusting herself, she listened to Xaris speak to this Nyale, though her words caused Yukiko to frown a bit. Despite their history with each other, this was not the time to provoke a woman in her territory! Did she have some kind of death wish?!
To try and deflate the situation, Yukiko ran out in front of Xaris, blocking her path and trying to get on a better side with this Nyale. "Hey!... I... Uh... W-Well... You and I are friends." She attempted to put herself on the spot, shyly speaking to this Nyale to try and stop whatever Xaris was about to do. "Well... You've been a very good friend to me." She added, her gaze slightly lowering for a moment, her hands slightly pressing against her digits. She had been so caught up in fighting that even thinking about Nyale at the time seemed rather impossible, but now, with her in front of her like this, this situation brought some things out of her. "I-I don't know what's going on, but... we don't want to fight you. We got sent here by accident!" She tried to reassure. ""
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Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2025 11:24 pm
Status: Coolly Warm Location: In Her Domain ____________________________________________________ The balls of light that inhabited her eye socket somehow flickered to focus on Xaris as she began to speak. The woman watched her elemental counterpart cast a healing spell upon Yukiko. The spell guttered out. The lights seem to adjust and highlight whoever this Queen Nyale focused on, Yukiko becoming illuminated as this entity waved her hand without speaking a word. She didn't need to. Perhaps the spell was overkill however, a Curaja tier recovery spell was not quite necessary to get Yukiko back into working order, but it would get the job done.
The flames seemed to twist to cast their light upon Xaris as Nyale's attention returned to her as Xaris continued. "What I have become? Completed. Perfected. As Father wanted. My benevolence keeps the peace, a task fit for my powers." Though what peace she seemed to bring was of the questionable sort. It did not take a genius to put together she seemed to be maintaining a form of obedience, perhaps even down to what they wore.
And the longer Xaris and Yukiko would stay, the more they would feel this effect. Nyale's entire domain here suppresses individuality. Spoken words become muted, emotions would feel distant. Small cracks along the floor hummed with a green arcane effect, a sick miasma seemed to run through the floor.
Then when Yukiko move ahead, once again it seemed the nature of this place gave her a spotlight as Nyale's attention shifted once more. The Queen gave a slightly confused smile as the trabian announced she did not want to fight. "Oh dear, fight? But that is what my brothers are for. Father made them excellent at that, but you know, I have not had a friend who has not been perfected in quite the while. You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish, Yukiko my good friend. I will petition for Father to complete you, instead of destroying you." _____________________________________________________
All Eren saw was light, felt heat, felt pain, and felt the foreign embrace of Titan's nanobots reaching out to contain his body from the visceral assaults of Breaker's dual limit break. Paired with Saida's Phantom blessing him with a visceral shield, Eren survived a fate that would have either killed him or left him very unconscious, probably in a coma. The hand of Titan extended and pooled around him until the point where Breaker's limit ended, Golem suffering a great deal of damage before being forced to disperse and Eren could feel the pain and suffering that Golem was experiencing as its nanobots were eviscerated and burned up before dispelling. You did good, Golem...we were outmanned and outgunned but we held our own till.. Well...the calvary arrived but it was people that he didn't even know.
Not that it mattered. All Eren could see as Golem vanished, as well as Titan, that Breaker stood his ground unconscious before they were encaptured in a white light. There was no moment to think. No moment to feel. If there had been a moment for him to do so, Eren would have thought that his death had approached and like a sniper's bullet on a weaker man, had taken him from this mortal coil without him even being remotely aware. The light enraptured him and the light consumed him. Perhaps he had the capacity to think, but there was nothing for him to grasp onto. The world went quiet, dark even.
Slowly, his vision returned to him, like granules of sand receding over the vision that was blinded by the moment of light and dark. Feeling returned, his body realizing and shivering upon the cold floor that he found himself sitting on. The environment was...not one that he was familiar with. Was this the afterlife? All together his senses came to be, realizing that he was on his knees looking upward towards the throne. The voice of a woman rang familiar, but his eyes were trying to capture the environment; the bodies strewn all over the throne room with a white haired young man, Raeka, chained down. Eren slowly began to think, recognize. There was Raeka...and there was Kalen, dead on the ground with life sucked out of his body before the throne. His stomach turned in disgust, almost wanting to hurl at the thought of seeing people he knew twisted, despite his annoyance with Raeka, and dead, Kalen being the brother of the girl he had the strongest feelings for...
His eyes locked onto the red haired form of Remington, his heart sinking into the depths of his stomach like a massive weight.
This was hell.
"....Rem...?" His voice murmured, in disbelief, the way she spoke to him being absolutely foreign to the woman that he knew, "....what....?" His eyes looked down towards the form of Kalen, obviously distraught at seeing that Remington had a hand in killing her beloved brother. "What is this...what did you do?" What energy he had, was wavering, at the eyesore of a reality that he had found himself in. What had happened? Where was he? Remington's words struck a core, and rung harshly in a way that struck him deeper than the reality they were speaking in.
".....kill you?" Eren slowly pulled himself to a pained crouch, his knees on fire whilst his eyes looked over the beautiful but horrible face and figure of the red haired woman. "Why would I try to kill the woman I love?" There was no malice in his voice, but awe and horror, sadness and confusion. Layers of Eren were unveiled, and for a moment in this alternate world, his cadence and slang was gone at the shock of it all. "...I was fighting this ********' guy..." It returned back shortly, his slang and impediment, "'n I saw a flash of light....and I see ya...."
EON?
"I....see you killed your brother. What happened to you? What is this?"
For a moment her eyes flashed, and a soft smile graced her face. "Love?" The word left her lips like they were escaping a cage; as if they never expected to be spoken again. She slowly rose from her throne, a flick of her wrist sending a light to encompass Kalen's body shortly before he dissipated into time. He would arrive at another place, in another time, though where that was was of no importance to this incarnation.
"Because everyone I knew tried to kill me, even my dear brother who klaimed to love me as well." Her gaze listed over to The Breaker after Eren spoke about him, but it's focus returned to Eren shortly after. "And you don't seem to be a facsimile to trick me; your concentration is far too low..." She rose a discolored hand to her lips, the sickly purple matching her new tattoo's that spread across her form.
The slit red dress with black feathered cowl was fairly fetching on the red head, with a plunging neckline. Her clothes showed a immodest amount of skin of both her right leg up to the thigh and her torso, down to her waist. In contrast, her arms were entirely covered beyond the discolored hands. Although they seemed to be shifting into something closer to claws, as expressed by her exposed feet, which were less discolored, but the shift into some sort of monstrous features were more obvious.
"Now, Mr. Kyng, why would you be fighting 'this ********' guy'?" She asked as she approached, "A conflict with Galbadia? To protect the old me? Or was it another misunderstanding such as like the Concert with my pet?"
The repeating of the word should have rang deep in the depths of Eren's heart, and vibrated in the confines of his soul. It did not. It only provided a slight red at the realization of his idiotic speaking, emitting a flush look on his face as his eyes glances over at her face, capturing her reaction like a strange film that he was the only one truly privy to. There was only a moment for his eyes to glance at Kalen's form before it vanished from this world, a deep feeling churning in his stomach. Sorry dude... It wasn't the Kalen of his world, but it was still gut wrenching to see someone he knew, even in passing, vanish from the space that he was inhabiting.
"I don' know nothin' bout all that." Eren slowly came to his knees and was upright, wincing at the pain that he felt in his limbs, his joints, and damaged flesh. A small cough came from him, the smoke of his prior encounter with Breaker regurgitating itself. All he could do here was listen to this...foreign form of Rem, one that was more alien than human to him and gave chills up his spine at the power that was eminating from her. Eren could hang, at least, with Breaker but this version of Remington was far and beyond his capabilities. Her words illicited a power that he could not even think about having, and part of him dared not even desire.
Even how she was dressed caused his eyes to divert, not out of fear towards the forms that she was taking with her hands but due to his utmost love, care, and respect for the woman, even if she was not his world's version and even if she looked...beautiful. Her words were heard, and he waited for the proper time to response, because there was no use in interjecting and worse, he did not want to set her off if she was emotional unstable. "I couldn't do any of that." He murmured, and something told him that the Eren of this realm could not either. If he were anything like himself, he would rather go into exile than kill someone he cared about so deeply. "But..." His eyes glanced over towards Breaker. "It's always a conflict with Galbadia, ain' it? I was tryin' to save Robin and stop Galbadia from takin' Dollet...buyin' time while you trained... This ********' guy came out of nowhere and..." Pushed him harder than he'd been pushed before? Kicked his a**? He kicked his a**? There was so many ways he wished to spin it, to be honest.
Yet it all came down to this realization.
Eren had no acclimations towards being some person who would change the world. In fact, here he only came to realize that he just wanted to hold off Galbadia so that he could see her again. He cared about the fate of the countries but...selfishly, he only wanted to live to see her again. Honestly, it was the only thing he could think about when he wasn't fighting, working on something, or even traveling.
"The concert wasn't an misunderstandin', that b*****d lit muh plush on fire." Even here, he wouldn't let that silver haired b*****d be devoid of guilt towards his actions there. Still, he knew that this version of Raeka was...tortured. And even in this world, Eren forgave him at least.
"You kouldn't do any of that?" She repeated, before mouthing the words against for a second time. "You... kouldn't do any of that...?" Her eyes narrowed as she stopped less than a foot from Eren. She was searching his eyes for something, before she flashed another smile. "Galbadia was always such useful puppets. Dancing along their strings to my tune for the Sorceress Wars. If it wasn't for them, and if it wasn't for Salem, we may not have ended up here." Wherever here was.
She reached up for Eren's face, gently resting her hands along the frame of his face. The ends of her claws pressed just ever so slightly beneath his jaw. "But you kouldn't do any of anything kould you?" Her tone seemed to sour, but her expression did not change. "When it was me against the world, Eren, where were you? My Pet was there for me, but not you..."
Remington went quiet for a moment, watching him, before simply giving him a dejected sigh. "Where are you now? Not with me, not when I would need you. No, instead you're on a escapade to battle Galbadians. I wonder, if your me needs you now, if you already missed the krucial moment, if you've abandoned me then as you have now..."
Her hands tensed. It suddenly felt like a line of knives cradling Eren's face.
"Don' put the actions of your world's Eren on me."
The platitudes of that statement were wide but more encompassing and thoughtful than what most could consider Eren capable of. His voice was soft, removed was any of the gruff and hard exterior that he used to protect himself from the world that he was forced to endure. How he always felt when it was just Rem and he alone, the moments of fleeting dance they shared that night in UNITA, the conversations all across that city, it didn't boil in the depths of his chest but warmed his soul. Soft, warm, but due to the circumstance there was a sense of sad longing in his voice. His shaved hair, now growing beyond stubble, did nothing to save him from the cold sensation that ran up and down his body like an invisible cracked egg.
His eyes did not remove themselves from peering into the depths of her own, examining her face as if looking for an answer that he could not find on his own just as she peered into his. Neither of his gauntleted hands clenched in self defense, his expression never wavered, and his limbs remained at his side, not as if he was in fear of her but rather he was completely enrooted in the moment before him.
"I don' know where I was here, but we parted ways I said I'd see ya again." His voice held the same tone, almost as if it were a swan crying out for the its mate to come find him. "Every day, I think 'bout you. Every day, I practice me speak....speaking." He had to think for a moment and force himself to annunciate. "I'd rather be with you than anywhere else...you're the only person I ever felt at peace with." Every other day was a personal war, every other day was a fight with himself to endure, every other day was a constant struggle to try and find something that made him feel fulfilled and complete. Ever since his parents had died in Fisherman's Horizon...he really had nothing like that. Golem was the closest thing to family but there was no true sharing of feelings and thoughts, emotions and moments. "I left Esthar to fight closer to you. You left to go train with your fellow Sorceresses. I don't wan'....want to be away from you, even if you don't feel nothing for me. You can hurt me if you want...Remington...but it won't change how I feel. I don't want to be here, either, I want to be with you."
Despite her threatening demeanor, Eren did not tense or get nervous when her hands caressed the steel of his jawline. If anything, his expression remained soft, nostalgic before evolving to a resolved steel, a proper expression for the self proclaimed Dreadnaught of UNITA. Even with her tensed hands, he did not waver or become deterred, looking directly into her face. Each of his words were slow, carefully crafted not to illicit a response, persay, but so he could show her that he was indeed practicing his speaking even if it took him a moment to properly speak clearly.
She may look like his Rem, his red haired baddie, but she was not in fact, his world's Rem. But even still...this was still a Remington. And while she made him shy, made him look in the mirror and mutter dictation and annunciation exercises in a mirror every day since he left UNITA just so he could surprise her, and yes, she could make him turn red in the face faster than a Marlboro could spit up a Bad Breath...
"We parted ways and you never returned." Her tone was haunting. More than just disappointment, but as if Erens failure to return was inevitable. "What are honeyed words with nothing behind them. Sweet platitudes now that we have been accidentally reunited. But otherwise hollow." Her grasp on his face loosened, before her hands fell limply to her sides and she turned away from him.
"There was so much riding on my shoulders. The concert, my latent sorcery, heir to the president of Unita, I was barely an adult, and so much of my childhood I spent playing like I was grown." For a moment she lifted a arm, swiping it across her face before it fell once again. "And when the time comes, the SeeD and the Everetts come to kill me again, and so the cycle begins anew. Although... this time there is another Salem out for my blood."
"But... as I taught him, he taught me, although his lessons always came too late. There is a position for one dedicated to a sorceress. To be at their side and prevent the oncoming madness from taking over." She lifted her arms, clearly looking at the monstrous appendages one could charitably call her hands. "To prevent our descent into becoming monsters."
"It's like water rushing, crashing over me, the pressure crushing and the depths unimaginable. The floodgates opened and I was swept away, and by the time I resurfaced, everything I knew was washed away." She took a few steps closer to the chained Raeka, whose catatonic form had failed to respond to anything that had happened so far.
"Can you believe, Kalen chose Nyale over me? Not even family can truly be trusted, but there is one." She held up a finger as she spoke, looking back towards Eren. "It was the final lesson I received from Salem. Of a Sorceress' Knight. We're meant to have one, to prevent Sorcery from destroying us from the inside. Could you? Would you hold the madness for me, or must I face it alone, Eren?"
No words came from Eren. The silence in the room, other than Remington's words rang out loud and clear, echoing down the hall of her throne room. Raeka's twisted form remained silent, all three males that dwelled in the space of it all, uncharacteristically silent. His limbs hurt but he heeded them no mind either, green hues never wavering in their trance towards the woman that turned away from him. Her trauma, her tale, they all came onto Eren's shoulders like weights that he did not know were there, but suddenly came leveling him to the ground on a mental level. This Remington was far gone, truly, and living in the world that this..universe, this echo had created.
His Rem was suffering in their own world, and according to the speech that he just heard, was going mad slowly but surely. Suffering just like the woman before him had. We parted ways and you never returned.
"I'd stand against the world to keep the one person who made me feel...better than myself...safe."
Each word was carefully thought out, not out of some need to be calculating, but to make it clear and true to the Sorceress Supreme before him.
"I won't speak for the actions of your brother. I can only speak for myself. I'd stand in front of fire and brimstone, the depths of hell and the fury o' heaven... I'd hold it for you until the world burns."
Slowly Eren came to his feet, wincing at the damage from his battle with the Breaker.
"I gotta go...you need me. And I'm not going to break my promise. If you'd have me."
A deep sigh of physical pain, but the readying emotionally of the many tasks he would have to come to bare. That would be his duty...to lift the weight of his world, and hers. His eyes showed the same defiance she would recognize from a young man years long lost to her. "My words ain't honey, they're real. I ain't got nothin' sweet in me, just cold, plain honesty."
